Thursday, March 19, 2009

Ok, that's more reasonable

So, once again, a miscommunication has caused undue panic. Apologies.

Turns out the plan is NOT to rush straight from chemo to transplant. When I went back and thought about the transplant process, at least as explained by MCV, I realized something was hinky. It would take weeks to track down the donor first identified last Summer, ensure their continued willingness to donate, harvest and treat the donation, ship it, and prepare her for transplant. Not 5 days: weeks.

Their current goal is to zap the white blood cells from her system, chemo her, and get her stable enough to undergo further clinical trials. If those trials are successful, they will then do the transplant.

That's very different, dontcha think?

The confusion was caused by the doctors making an end-game question on the first play of the game. Not cool. They asked if she still wanted her transplant to happen in Houston, which honestly shouldn't have even been a topic of conversation at the time at all.

And a bit more about the leg pain (which, right now, is my primary cause for concern): they've ordered tests--can't remember if she's already undergone those--to look for a blood clot. In the meantime, she's wearing pressure hose to keep the blood flowing. There's a risk with her severely depressed blood counts of hemostasis, a condition where the blood effectively congeals in the capillaries and pools in the extremities. Non-flowing blood causes oxygen deprivation, which causes cell death, which spells necrosis, which translates to gangrene.

So for now, in spite of the pain, she's trying to stay on her feet as much as she can. The hose have alleviated the pain in her legs, but her feet are still quite sore.